‘The Math Is the Math’: CNN’s John Berman Calls Out Byron Donalds On Debt Numbers Under Biden and Trump

CNN’s John Berman talked to one of the rumored vice presidential contenders for former President Donald Trump on Monday and had to remind him about the ex-president’s record on growing the national debt.

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) is one of the names being floated as a potential running mate for Trump, and he has made several press appearances to praise Trump (some of which have gone viral for the wrong reasons). When the subject of the national debt came up during his conversation with Berman, Donalds seemed to forget that Trump had a lot to do with the country’s multi-trillion-dollar deficit, even without accounting for the pandemic:

Berman: There was a report just out today, The New York Times, which cited a new analysis which showed that over Donald Trump’s term in office, the ten-year projection on debt grew by $8.4 trillion. Under President [Joe Biden] is 4.3, sorry, trillion, trillion dollars. The federal debt grew by $8.4 trillion, a ten-year projection. Biden, $4.3 trillion. That’s the projection. You take out Covid, it’s still 2 to 1, Trump over Biden. So you just talked about the debt situation there is. What has President Trump said to you about how he intends to cut the debt?

Donalds: Well, first of all, let’s let’s go back to what you just said. You said if you remove Covid, that the ten-year debt window between Donald Trump and Joe Biden is still 2 to 1. I will tell you right now that math does simply not add up. Most of the debt incurred by Donald Trump does come from Covid-19 because the entire country’s economy was shut down. And at that point, yes, Congress and the White House had a responsibility to step into that gap to make sure that Americans didn’t just have their lives completely destroyed by Covid-19. It was a very tough period for our country. …

[I]f you want to talk about debt projections, it is crystal clear Joe Biden has no concern about about taxing and spending on the backs of the American people. Donald Trump will have a plan in order to be able to curtail federal spending, to get our debt under control. Covid-19 was an anomaly, not just in terms of what it did for public health, but also what it did for our debts and for our deficits. That is something that we should not continue. And I will add, it is Joe Biden in his administration that wants to continue elevated federal spending using the Covid-19 spending levels as a model for federal spending going forward. That’s simply not sustainable.

Berman: Congressman, I appreciate you being with us. Just to be clear, the math is the math by this organization that did this report and Axios and The New York Times today, it was a committee–

Donalds: And I will tell you that organization is wrong because I’m on Capitol Hill. That organization is wrong.

Berman: All right, well, they’ll put their math up against yours. You guys can fight it out. But the fact of the matter is, the budget debt projections grew more under Donald Trump, according to them, than President Biden.

Watch the video above via CNN.